


Professor Storm

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anevka Deserved Better, Anticlimax, Crack Relationships, Defense Against the Dark Arts Professors, F/F, F/M, Gen, Harry is oblivious to how many bisexuals there are at Hogwarts (including himself), Politics, Queer Themes, a Monty Python Ending, reference to sexual situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2020-11-28 04:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: That new DADA Professor sure is... uh... interesting, right?(In which Anevka Sturmvoraus serves her parole by teaching British wizarding children. She's surprisingly good at it... mostly.)





	1. First Semester

**Author's Note:**

> Done for Girl Genius Event Week for "Oct. 8: The rarepair ship"
> 
> Also, hi! It's my birthday. I'm 24 now.

It started like this:

There were many members of the Order of the Phoenix passing in and out of Sirius’s house every night. After a while, Harry and the others knew most of them by face, if not by name. The twins could name almost everyone there at a moment’s notice, if the rest of them got confused.

Not even the twins knew the woman that showed up with Dumbledore one night, pulling off goggles and a hood that had looked nearly plastered to her head by the rain. A man came in behind her, shaking out his hair and pulling off a Sherpa-lined jacket as he did so.

“I told you to wear something waterproof,” the woman said, with a laugh in her voice and a smile on her face.

“I can take a little water, Miss Thorpe,” the man returned. “We’re English. It comes with the territory.”

“I would expect,” Dumbledore interrupted before they kept going. “That’s even more true for the two of you, coming from the domain you do.”

The two strangers looked at each other, and then the woman snorted as the man ducked his head. “You could say that. Now, you said you had somewhere secure to talk? We’re going to be dealing with something… purple.”

“Of course, just this way.”

\--

When Dolores Umbridge was announced as the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, people were mostly confused. As she gave her speech, people were alternately worried and bored, depending on how much they’d paid attention.

They perked right back up as Dumbledore stood again.

“Thank you, Madame Umbridge, for that wonderful speech. And now, it is my great pleasure to introduce your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Professor Annie Storm has come to us from Romania, and is currently… I believe if you look up, you’ll see her.”

Harry craned his head, but he couldn’t spot a thing. Was this a joke?

“That was true fifteen minutes ago,” a voice stated, clear and amused and just a touch of accent. It echoed. “Unfortunately, nobody was paying attention then.”

The entire hall buzzed as students turned this way and that, trying to spot this supposed Professor.

“I believe your last teacher spoke to you of constant vigilance, yes? Seems the lesson didn’t _stick.”_

A dozen people screamed as a dark shadow dropped from a hidden alcove and right onto the still-empty teacher’s table. Dumbledore was hidden for a fraction of a moment, and then the shape stepped down to the floor and Harry’s brain caught up to his eyes.

The new professor looked young, certainly younger than most of the staff. Pale, and with hair such a deep and glossy red that Harry wasn’t sure it was even real. It looked almost painted on with how tightly it was pulled back. Maybe it was just the bun. Maybe it was just magic.

He didn’t think it mattered nearly as much as the knee-length military jacket and boots she wore, because the impression _those_ gave off was one of a woman who would not, ever, be stopped if she put her mind to something, and he was pretty sure she’d just set her mind to making them all as vigilant as Moody thought they were supposed to be.

The idea scared him.

Her eyes scanned over the students, head turning in a smooth, calculated motion that sent shivers down every spine. There was something wrong here. Harry didn’t know _what_, but there was… something.

“Oh, this is going to be _fun,”_ Professor Storm almost purred the words. “I’ll be seeing you all over the next week. Keep an eye out. You’re going to need to.”

She turned and walked up to the empty spot at the teacher’s table, and planted a hand on it. With a deceptively smooth motion, she vaulted and flipped over the table, landing in her seat without causing so much as a wobbling goblet.

“Thank you for that introduction, Professor Storm,” Dumbledore said, seeming entirely sincere. Maybe she’d warned him? He’d certainly known at least part of her plan…

These thoughts almost _didn’t_ consume Harry for the rest of dinner, lost in favor of discussing Umbridge’s speech, but then Hermione started tugging on his sleeve and hissing.

“Harry—Harry, she doesn’t _eat.”_

Harry looked up to find that, indeed, Professor Storm’s plate was entirely empty.

“Maybe she ate before she got in?” Ron suggested, though he didn’t sound too sure of himself.

“She’s not drinking anything either,” Hermione pointed out.

Harry shrugged. “Maybe she’s like Moody and too paranoid to trust anything she didn’t make herself?”

With a sharp, snapping movement, Professor Storm’s head turned to them. She locked eyes with Harry and smiled.

He felt a shiver go down his spine as she turned away.

What was _that?_

\--

Harry was not in the _first_ class to have Professor Storm, but he was certainly one of the earlier lessons. He’d heard a handful of rumors about how completely terrifying the woman was, but nobody would elaborate on what it was that she’d _done_ to scare them. Given that the previous year had involved people getting downright excited over watching Unforgiveables used on spiders, Harry was more than a little concerned about what could have been done to horrify them into silence.

Professor Storm stood at the front of the room when they came in, hands tucked behind her and facing forward. She did not turn her head as they entered. She did not acknowledge them at all. With her wide stance and dark military jacket, she looked like an imposing general ready to bark out orders at a moment’s notice.

“Should we sit down, d’you think?” Ron asked.

“Yes, let’s,” Hermione said. “Front of the room.”

“That close to her?” Harry asked. “She’s—”

“A teacher, Harry. She’s not going to hurt you… not this early in the year, at any rate.”

“Yeah, but…” Harry trailed off, eyeing Professor Storm nervously. Hermione was right about how none of the teachers had really, properly attacked him before June, or at _least_ late May, but…

The air felt heavy, like breathing cotton instead of oxygen. A few people whispered, trying to figure out what was going on, but nobody felt brave enough to actually speak up and ask Professor Storm what was going on.

“She hasn’t even _blinked,” _someone whispered, the sharp noise carrying in the oppressive silence.

“Maybe she’s a puppet,” Seamus suggested. “Or—or a distraction?”

Some crashed in the back of the room, a screeching noise of laughter and clattering metal. Harry whipped around, eyes wide and heart suddenly beating sixty miles an hour.

There was nothing there.

Hannah Abbot screamed, and her words didn’t process by the time Harry had turned around again.

“She’s _gone!”_

And so Professor Storm was.

Harry looked up, pulse pounding in his throat, with the Professor’s words from the Feast running through his head.

She wasn’t there.

“Well, it looks like you _can_ learn.”

It took a handful of moments more to locate her, despite the fact that she was talking to them.

As it turned out, she’d positioned herself inside one of the deep recesses of a large window, bent and twisted to fit in a way that Harry hurt just looking at.

“Tell me,” she said, slipping out and jumping to the floor in such a smooth movement that Harry suddenly doubted she’d even been up there in the first place. “Which of you knows what a Kansas City Shuffle is?”

Hermione’s hand shot up into the air.

Professor Storm waited a moment longer, and then nodded at Hermione.

“It’s a type of con in the muggle world,” she said. “Where the person realizes they’re being tricked, but they’re wrong about how, so the con artist can trick them a different way.”

“Correct, two points,” Professor Storm said. “Now, that is one of the most basic kinds of con. It is also a step beyond what I did today. I moved fast enough that, with or without magic, I could have killed any one of you before you even realized I was moving. I am not the only person in the world who could do so. You did not feel safe, and yet you still were vulnerable.”

“You wouldn’t _hurt_ us,” Justin protested. “We’re—”

“Stop,” Professor Storm said. “This is not about what I _would_ do. It is about what I _could._ Most of you, if you are lucky, will never be in a position where you need to weigh your lives and live in constant fear and hyperawareness. Some of you will, depending on which careers you take, whom you marry, and what the political shape of your world becomes over the decades. Old dangers linger. New ones bloom. You must be aware, and you must be ready, because there is _always_ something that could, and even _would,_ kill you, if given the chance.”

She looked at them again through half-lidded eyes and a face so still as to imagine it was carved from marble.

(Later, Hermione would say that she looked as though she was casting judgement and found them wanting. Harry thought that was a fancy way to say that Professor Storm thought they all had a lot of work to do before they were ready to survive the first step of adulthood.)

“I am an agent of the Shining Coalition,” she stated, removing her jacket and standing before them in clothes printed with a dizzying web of gears and clockwork. “I have fought. I have killed. I have spied. I have seen the rise of dark wizards and put them down before they got past the borders of their own town. I have seen sparks try to take over the world and blew up their machines before they could get to the on-button. I have fought in the endless battles against the weissdamen of the silver citadel.

“I have seen _every_ danger you can imagine and then some. There will be people who try to tell you the world is safe. They are lying. My job is not to make you ready to fight a war, or even to fight a battle. My job is to give you the tools you need so that, if you ever find yourself in the kinds of positions I find people in every day, you will be able to escape long enough for someone more qualified to show up.”

She was quiet again, head turning carefully over them. A hand flashed, and something flew down the middle of the aisle, too fast to be seen.

“Lesson one,” Professor Storm said, as they all turned to look at the quivering silver knife buried point-first in the center of the bullseye target at the back of the room. “Be prepared for _anything.”_

“Open your books to chapter one.”

\--

It started like this:

There was a prince in France. Of magic nature and of muggle blood, he hid himself through the tail end of the witch trials, and when his father died and the kingdom became his, he looked across Europa and said he would take the broken pieces and make them whole.

With the mystics at his back and the sparks at his side, he fought his way across the endless wars and settled what he could. With charm in his voice and charisma in his bearing, he convinced his conquered lands to live peaceful, quiet lives under his rule. With wisdom in his writing and genius in his counsels, he governed well.

With love in his heart and foolishness in his choices, he threw it all away for a woman who disappeared before they made it to the altar.

Andronicus Valois united countries and worlds, but he died a victim of his own passions.

The Shining Coalition shuddered and bowed, but did not shatter. France’s sparks and muggles continued under the guiding hand of Simon Voltaire, and the Master of Paris kept his ties close to Beauxbatons. Sparks and Wizards had once been considered one and the same, after all, and the fact that the wizards had shrouded themselves in mystery while sparks continued to break through in the spectacular ways they always had? It did not burn all bridges quite so easily.

The Shining Coalition was not the International Federation of Wizards, but had one asked for a comparison, many would have said that the Shining Coalition was much like the European Union, while the International Federation was more like the United Nations. They did not always keep the peace amongst wizards, but they were a shadowed hand above every nation of magic that threatened to start burning their own as the muggles had once burned them.

And so it continued, until the Other. And so it continued, until the Pax Wulfenbachia. And so it continued, until the Heterodyne Girl.

And so it continued, until Albia woke from her centuries of sleep and decided to extend her hand to her dear Britannia once more.

(This is a lie. Albia did not sleep, to keep such a light hand on her domain. She watched from afar. She ruled her underwater city in the crevasse between England and Ireland and summered in her tree of memory. She kept her powers close and tight and unused, because her power drew from the Earth, but it was not endless. She would run out eventually. She had agents watching her land, had her people and her interests, but did not meddle directly. Her people did it for her.)

(Mortals will always solve their own problems, she’d told herself. She wanted to see what would let them grow, and perhaps beget a new queen that struggled her way up and _oh young Rowena had come so close but it was not to be. _Albia had distanced herself for a reason, after all. It wouldn’t do to ruin everything just because of _noseless little upstart Dark Lord who couldn’t even understand what he was doing to himself_ without trying something simpler first.)

(Albia was a myth in the mists of English history, a distant goddess and queen with historians arguing day and night, thousands of years gone but undeniably real. There was something written into the stone and marble and brittle paper of every English government since she’d left that stated that Albia’s rule was absolute. They wrote that should she ever return, she would have the Queen Goddess throne that had sat empty, undamaged, untouchable, for over two and a half thousand years.)

(Albia rode out and fought those that would threaten her country in person. She’d done so in that dreadful half-decade when the Germans and Italians and Japanese had twisted their countries into machines of nothing short of pure hatred. She’d done so when the Romans attempted to take her land.)

(She would do so again, if she had to.)

(But more often than not, she didn’t need to.)

(This was why she had Thorpe, and Wooster, and so many, many others.)

(This was why she was a queen, and not a hero: she delegated.)

\--

Professor Storm provided office hours and was always available during them. Hermione said it was something she’d heard was common for universities, and had decided rather immediately to take advantage.

She was, at first, the only one.

And then she wasn’t.

“She has some really weird things in there,” Neville said, after his own visit, caving to his worries about failing after a letter from his grandmother. “There’s this sword on the wall that looks wicked sharp, and it’s totally white. I didn’t ask where she got it from but I think she caught me looking, because she told me she got it from a geisterdam.”

“A what?” Ron asked.

“Er, apparently it means ghost woman? She said it’s what they call weissdamen on the continent.”

“Because they’re so pale, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Neville said. He shuddered. “She said something about how you never know what to expect when you burn something until you’ve done it. She said that when a weissdame is on fire, it smells like licorice.”

The silence in the boy’s dorm was an uncommonly long one.

“…Merlin’s baggy Y-fronts,” Ron managed. “Why would she know that?”

“She said she’s fought them,” Harry reminded him. “But…”

Neville shrugged, looking a little too ill for comfort. “I didn’t ask.”

\--

“Professor Storm,” Umbridge said, as the audit of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class began. “If you don’t mind—”

_She does,_ Harry thought, though the look on the Professor’s face was blankly polite.

“—you don’t really believe that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back, do you?” Umbridge scoffed, her voice a titter. “He can’t be, and as he isn’t, there’s really nothing to put these children in _danger._ The Ministry believes—”

“Whether or not Voldemort is back is not under my scope of needed information,” Professor Storm interrupted. She crossed her arms and kept her face as blank as it usually was. “There is always another danger. A new Dark Wizard, a spark, a runaway construct or magical beast, a woman of the webs or any number of dangerous, murderous things. I do not, ultimately, _care_ about Voldemort. I genuinely don’t. He was, or is, a symptom of a larger problem. I was loaned to Hogwarts by the Shining Coalition to provide students with the necessary instruction to keep them alive in _any_ situation they are liable to come across, in response to rising violent crime statistics in the magical community and an absence of other candidates. My job is not to _care_ about your politics and propaganda, or what the truth of the existence of a single Dark Wizard is. My job is to care about the students.”

“They are _children,”_ Umbridge snapped. “They should be learning _theory,_ not—what is that?”

“The proper defense against a third-class augmented vampire of the Herr Gelendar variant,” Professor Storm responded smoothly.

“…You’re teaching them to fight half-breeds?” Umbridge asked with something akin to hope in her tone.

It made Harry feel sick to his stomach.

“Next we’re covering coercion charms,” Professor Storm said. She smiled. “You know, the kind used by young white men with wealthy pureblood backgrounds who think they can pay off the law to ignore their crimes against minority populations.”

Harry choked on his own spit.

“You _dare—”_

“I was fifteen the first time someone tried to use one on me,” Professor Storm said flatly. “For a variety of reasons over the years, but the first time is exactly what I implied earlier. For every question you have as to why something is necessary, I have the answer, and I _refuse_ to be told that the children are not going to be in danger, because _I am living proof that everyone’s at risk._

“My experiences,” she continued, “Are extreme, and are more frequent than the average. I’m an outlier.

_“But,”_ she said, stepping forward, chin high. “If you want the statistics that show that everyone in this room is at risk for at least one of the things I’ve fought in my life to get to this point, then I have them. Do you want the one about coercion charms? It’s a full dossier, I assure you.”

Umbridge scribbled furiously on her clipboard.

\--

Harry wasn’t afraid to admit that he looked forward to Halloween with the same anticipation one would look forward to, say, skydiving. There were plenty of good things about Halloween, but also an entirely rational fear of death caused by prior experiences.

When the feast began, Harry stayed tense. He wasn’t the only one, but he was pretty sure he was the more obviously paranoid of the students.

(In another universe, he would have been paranoid of Dumbledore’s Army being discovered. In this universe, he had a competent teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts.)

The feast passed as expected, with chatter and food and Hermione keeping an eye on Professor Storm’s eternally empty plate. It was filling and fun, until the sound of shattering glass broke it all.

The students screamed, of course, even louder than when Professor Storm had made her entrance. This was probably because, and Harry had no shame in admitting this, there was something much more startling about a large man and a pale-clothed woman crashing in through the window and landing on the Hufflepuff table.

It was a bit of a blur, after that. Harry was sure that the teachers were doing something; he caught a glimpse of Dumbledore standing up and waving his wand. Harry pulled his own out, ready to fight if need be, but found himself being pushed out and away from the fight by an invisible force.

So that was what Dumbledore had done.

With distance and an inability to help, Harry was forced to actually pay attention to the fight.

…he couldn’t say paying attention made it easier to figure out who was the bad guy, but it sure wasn’t _boring._

There certainly was a lot of yelling going on, and none of it was in English.

One of the teachers broke away from the rest and sped into the bubble of fighting space faster than the eye could track, and was suddenly in the place of the woman in white. The woman in white, meanwhile, was being shot across the room to slam into the wall of Dumbledore’s battle bubble at approximately the same speed as the black and red blur that had slammed into her a fraction of a second earlier.

Professor Storm stood in the space of the female attacker, leg slowly lowering from a kick. There was a frown on her face as she spoke with the large man. The man’s hair was about as white as the woman’s, something so shining and devoid of color that Harry almost checked to see if Malfoy was jealous of them.

The woman in white rushed them, and the man lifted his arm and _oh bloody hell was that a gun was that a death ray what—_

Professor Storm swung up an arm and the woman in white ricocheted back into the wall again.

“Please excuse my husband,” she said to the room at large. “Apparently he once again forgot the meaning of _not mixing work_ with visits.”

Husband?

Professor Storm was _married?_

The woman in white got up again, ran and screeched and managed to land a blow on the large man, apparently Mr. Storm, and the fight began again in earnest. So did the shouting in languages Harry didn’t actually recognize.

There were flailing limbs and terrifying spells, and at one point Professor Storm and her husband both attempted to kick downwards in unison, and when the woman dodged, their legs drove straight _through_ the Hufflepuff table, snapping it in half.

“Has to be magic…” Ron whispered, face drained of blood.

“I’m more concerned about the web dame,” Hermione whispered.

“The what?”

“The—Harry! Haven’t you been paying attention in class at all? That’s one of the weissdamen!”

_The weissdamen?_ Harry remembered learning about them, but it wasn’t until Hermione pointed it out that he actually connected the dots.

“Why isn’t she using magic?” Ron asked.

“Web dames are magic-resistant,” Hermione said, biting her lip. “Some things work, if you frame it correctly or have enough power, but the physical and sparkwork attacks that Professor Storm is using are probably more effective.”

There was a blinding flash of light, and the web dame fell to the ground, clutching at her eyes and screaming.

Professor Storm was over her in a fraction of a breath, turning her over and snapping cuffs that reached from wrist to elbow, and separated out every finger to immobility.

“Oslaka?” She asked, looking up to her husband as she clapped a large gag that looked more like a muzzle over the web dame’s face.

He shook his head and said something Harry didn’t understand.

Professor Storm made a face and looked down at the woman. She sighed and turned to Professor Dumbledore. “I’m afraid we’ve run into something a jurisdiction issue. This woman is currently wanted by the Pax Wulfenbachia. However, as she was apprehended on British soil by an agent of the Shining Coalition, we’ve something of an issue.”

“How do you know this?” Umbridge demanded. “That she was wanted by the muggle empire?”

Professor Storm looked at her for a long moment, and then pointed at her husband. “Because he works for Wulfenbach Special Forces, in the magispark division, and he was the one tasked with bringing her in for questioning.”

“She killed a lot of people in Leipzig,” the man qualified. “And she implied knowledge about hidden Hive Engines, so we’re hoping to get her to share that so we can neutralize the dangers.”

Professor Storm looked down at the woman consideringly. “I could make her talk.”

“And then I’d have to tell your brother,” Othar said. “What a hero! Why, if I’d—”

“Not here, dear,” Professor Storm says, cutting him off. She looked down at the woman again, and then nodded. “This was on magical grounds, but the threat was primarily sparkwork in origin. Call Wooster and Thorpe, they should be able to help you get through the red tape a little quicker.”

“Thorpe?” Umbridge asked. “You mean that _squib_ that parades around acting like—”

“She’s called the Spark of the Realm for a reason,” Professor Storm said, voice calm. “She is a hero and, more importantly, she ultimately _outranks you.”_

Umbridge’s face turned purple. Professor Storm turned away.

She spoke with her husband again, voices hushed even though most of the room couldn’t understand them, and the large man hefted the woman in white over his shoulder. He leaned down almost in two to press a kiss to Professor Storm’s cheek, and she kept her eyes on him as he left, arms crossed and face impassively smooth.

She turned on her heel to the head table. “If you’d like to call your own officials to interfere, you’d really better get on it. Miss Thorpe gets where she’s going _quickly.”_

\--

Professor Storm’s husband never introduced himself.

He hung around the castle, from time to time, but whenever someone asked his name, he simply laughed and said that was classified. He didn’t mind being defined by his marriage, so “Mr. S” would work fine for the time being.

“Absolutely mental,” Ron muttered. “Did you hear him talking the other day? He was trying to convince Angelina to be a spunky girl sidekick on his ‘heroic adventures.’”

“What did she say?” Hermione asked.

“She just kind of stared at him, you know? She told him she was ‘going to be a professional Quidditch player, thanks,’ and then Professor Storm showed up and pulled him away to talk about something.”

“I saw him holding her up on one hand so she could look through some books on a high shelf at the library,” Hermione confessed. “It looked like that thing you see muggle cheerleaders do in American movies.”

“Couldn’t she just get a ladder? Or use magic?” Harry asked.

“I think she likes telling him what to do,” Hermione said. She made a face, like she wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole thing. “I think he likes her _telling_ him what to do.”

“Mental,” Ron repeated, shaking his head. “Absolutely bloody mental, the both of them.”

\--

Harry wasn’t there for the beginning of it.

This wasn’t his fault, because the beginning was in the library, three minutes before curfew, and a book that he’d never looked at before. The beginning happened while he was showering after Quidditch practice, trying to burn the tension out of his muscles and soothe the aches of Angelina having them all run a dozen laps. The beginning happened while Harry was exhibiting one of his few consistent nods to self-care.

The beginning happened when Luna Lovegood, with tears on her cheeks, pulled down a book on the anatomy of a Thestral, and started thinking.

And thinking.

And thinking.

The beginning happened when Luna started to break through.

** _All students are to return to their dormitories. Prefects who are out patrolling past curfew, please bring any stragglers with you and remove yourselves from the halls. Morning classes are cancelled until further notice. All teachers please congregate in the teacher’s lounge. I hope to have an update for you soon._ **

Dumbledore’s voice rang out over Hogwarts, half an hour after curfew, and Harry couldn’t help but share a look with Ron and Hermione.

“Should we get the cloak?” Ron asked.

“It’s probably nothing,” Hermione said, though she didn’t sound too convinced.

“What if it’s Voldemort?” Harry pointed out. “What if he just—”

“It can’t be, Dumbledore would’ve _told_ us,” Hermione said.

“Maybe Professor Storm and Umbridge got in a duel,” Ron said. “And neither of them are going to be here for the rest of the year.”

“Professor Storm doesn’t deserve that,” Hermione argued. “She’s a harsh grader, but so is McGonagall.”

“She’s bloody terrifying!” Ron said.

Harry left the common room.

They were still arguing when he came back, cloak in his hands. “Well, are you coming or what?”

\--

It was hard to figure out what was going on, but the map helped. Students were mostly clustered in dormitories, with a name or two in the hospital wing and two in the bathroom somewhere on the sixth floor. Harry opted to ignore it, because he didn’t really know or care what Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie MacMillan were doing up there. The teachers were no longer in the lounge, and while several were back in their studies, the heads of house, Dumbledore, and Professor Storm were in a large, unused room just inside the massive front doors of the castle, across the way from Firenze’s classroom.

So was Luna.

“That’s odd,” Hermione muttered.

“That’s _Luna,”_ Harry said, like the other two couldn’t read the map themselves.

“Why are they all at the door like that?” Ron asked. “Luna’s in the room and Professor Storm is too, but everyone else is—”

“We can’t find out unless we go, right?” Harry asked. He set off, and the other two had to hurry to match their shuffling footsteps to his. They weren’t short enough to fit quite so easily as they once had, after all.

They came to the room in question, and the lightshow that spread from the door to the ceiling was… odd and spectacular and a little confusing.

They crept closer, relieved to find that the teachers had moved to just _inside _the room, rather than blocking the doorway entirely. They had their wands up, and the powerful shielding charm they were casting was only just barely visible to the naked eye.

That wasn’t what caught their attention, though.

No, that was Luna and the Thestral she was elbow-deep in, a wand and potions and a needle and thread nearby, a dazed, crazed look in her eyes as she did something that twisted the mind to even look at. Even though Ron and Hermione couldn’t see it all, there was still enough to know something was deeply, utterly wrong, and Harry was sure they’d at least see the ink-black blood that coated her arms and sleeves.

Professor Storm kneeled next to her, watching with a critical eye and occasionally reaching out and snagging a sleeve when Luna started to do something that, presumably, the professor didn’t approve of.

Harry related this all to Hermione and Ron, both of them unable to see the utterly confusing and impossible tableau before them in full.

“What is she _doing?”_ Hermione whispered, voice overflowing with horror. “Luna’s not—she’d never hurt a creature like this, what is she _thinking?”_

Harry had no idea. He was—he was at a loss for words.

They stood until their feet ached, shifting their weight and watching as Luna mixed magic and mad, messy muggle methods in her manic movements.

“How much longer?” Snape asked at one point, shifting closer to McGonagall.

“Days, most likely,” she said. She didn’t look happy about it. “A breakthrough can last—a long time. We haven’t had one at the school in so long that I’d nearly forgotten how it could manifest. If we’re lucky, Anevka will help the girl end the project with minimal trauma to all parties, and we can bundle her off to bed and work through it all once the danger is past.”

Hermione breathed in sharply. “Anevka?”

“Must be Storm,” Ron said. “Sounds like Annie could be short for that, yeah?”

But Harry wasn’t paying attention.

“—vassen would be bringing muggle sparkwork blast shields that the Wulfenbachs designed for this, and yet he’s not yet so much as told us when he’ll be arriving.”

“It’s not like he has an easy way of doing so,” McGonagall said. “Not when we’re all down here.”

Breakthrough, McGonagall had said.

Like a spark.

Harry looked at Luna and the way she was still pulling threaded needles through black-haired, sunken skin and drawing her wand over legs so broken they were little more than a pulp, and thought about what he’d heard about Sparks, when it hadn’t been the Dursleys talking.

Traumatic, McGonagall had said.

Trauma could cause a breakthrough. A breakthrough could cause trauma. He’d heard that often enough.

He looked again at Luna and her project, and recognized it for what it was: a thestral foal.

A patient.

Of course Luna wouldn’t hurt an animal, even in the depths of what was now obviously a fugue.

She was _saving_ it.

\--

It started like this:

There was magic, and there was sparkhood, and the two could rarely mix without one drowning out the other. A spark of magic ancestry was a squib more often than not. A Sparkchild witch or wizard would almost never break through.

There were exceptions, though. Careful breeding and tweaks to genetics, by those who didn’t see it as tainting their pretty blood. Albia, the Valois, the Mongfish.

The Heterodynes.

Maybe it was the Dyne, from when the very first stepped to the spring of sacred, secret power and drank that which killed the rest. Maybe it was simply the unknowable nature of the family. But the Heterodynes wielded a wand in one hand and a wrench in the other, and went into battle waving war in their palms. Power came to them easily, and it did not matter if it sprang from magic or mechanics, because they chose, always, to solder the two together into whatever horrifying destruction they’d chosen to imagine.

So it was, from Ht’Rok-Din to Knife. From Clemethious to Blüdtharst. From Saturnus to, yes, even Bill and Barry, if not quite in such a violent manner.

All down to Agatha Heterodyne, enchantress and engineer.

The Dread Lady of Mechanicsburg.

The woman who brought down The Other.

But this is not her story.

\--

_It’s quiet and it’s calm, which is a rarity these days. Narcissa walks the halls with her head held high, and keeps an ear out for the sound of the Dark Lord returning from his latest trip to parts unknown. He may just be asleep in the master bedroom he declared would be his._

_She wishes he were gone._

_She walks past the library, and then pauses. She sends off a patronus to find her husband, and when he arrives, she points to the door. There is a fire roaring. It shouldn’t be._

_There is a figure standing. She doesn’t recognize it._

_Lucius draws his wand with a snap, and they enter slowly and together, wands high._

_The figure isn’t human. The face is metal and featureless, with a smile that doesn’t leave and eyes that don’t blink. She is stock-still, and they circle her carefully._

_“My old body, you know.”_

_They turn together to point their wands in the direction of the woman seated by the fire. She puts aside a cup of tea, and lifts her head._

_Cold metal skin, with a smile that could cut glass. Dancing eyes a color no human would have. Red hair, so deep as to look like blood. Clothing from the continental courts, ruffled and printed and dreadfully unfashionable in Wizarding England._

_“Sit,” she says, gesturing._

_“Who are you?” Lucius demands. “Why are you here?”_

_She tilts her head, still smiling, and bare metal arms whip out over their shoulders and steal their wands. The mannequin is holding them when they turn, still smiling, though her eyelids are halfway down by now. She speaks in unison with the metal woman in the armchair._

_“Take a seat,” she tells them again. “I’d like to chat before Riddle returns.”_

_“A chat about what?” Narcissa asks._

_“You’re on the losing side,” the woman says. “Do you want to know who I am?”_

_Narcissa looks over her shoulder at the ever-smiling mannequin, and turns back to the woman in the chair. “You’re a Muse, aren’t you?”_

_The woman laughs. “The Muse of Storms, yes. The Latecomer.”_

_“Muse of Murder,” Lucius breathes, and the woman smiles._

_“Yes, by some counts,” she says. She gestures. “Sit. Listen. You are on the losing side. I’m here to offer you a way out. Take my deal, and I’ll have you working for the Storm King. Don’t, and you’ll be in Azkaban before summer’s end.”_

_“It’s barely winter,” Lucius says, though his voice wavers such that Narcissa almost winces._

_“Eight months,” the princess says. She outranks them both, traditionally. “It’ll take less time to plan your incarceration than it would to incubate a child. So, are you willing to listen?”_

_“We are,” Narcissa says, her hand on Lucius’s wrist, and he takes her lead._

_They’ll listen._

_If nothing else, they’ll listen._

_“Perfect,” Anevka Sturmvoraus, Muse of the Storm and Sister to the King, the Poisoned Blade of the Shining Coalition, the Scarlet Princess, says._

_And she does so with a smile._

\--

“I’m getting tutored,” Luna said, when they finally got a chance to ask her, the curfew having ended with her first fugue. She was in the Hospital Wing, eating chocolate and soup and any number of things meant to help her feel better. “By Professor Storm.”

“In what?” Hermione asked. She’d been the one to insist they come by with Luna’s missed work.

“In how to control it,” Luna said. “My mother was a Spark, did you know? The last one at Hogwarts, before me. There aren’t many people that know how to be both magic and spark, but Professor Storm does. She’s going to teach me how to use the spark, but still be me, and be safe. She’s going to teach me some science, too, and lab safety, because she says I’m going to hurt myself if I don’t learn the basics first. Anything at all could throw me into a fugue, now.”

She looked to the side and held out a hand, and a pitch-black snout pushed up into it. Harry watched the thestral foal cuddle into Luna’s palm. It had broken its legs, she’d told them, so severely that they’d been little more than a pulp, and its wings had been torn off entirely. Hagrid had been trying to save it when she’d come across them, and she’d been upset enough to run to the library and start trying to help.

Then she’d started to break through, and decided that sewing the wings back on as fins was much better than having crushed legs that would always hurt to walk on. She couldn’t remember half of what she’d done, but the foal was now just barely heavier than air, the weight of the magic around it far stronger. Harry wasn’t sure if it was in pain or not, but it swam through the air and apparently could breathe as easily underwater as it could above land, so Harry figured that whatever Luna had done worked fine.

“She wouldn’t have survived if Professor Storm hadn’t been there,” Luna said quietly. “I don’t know enough. I was so—so excited to help, and I wanted to, I really did, but I don’t _know_ the things I need to, if I want to actually catch up to my ideas. Professor Storm does.”

That, of course, was when Harry decided that maybe Professor Storm wasn’t that bad after all.

\--

Professor Storm stood in front of the class with her hands behind her back, head high, and eyes judging.

This was normal. What was not normal was that she was in the History of Magic classroom.

“I’ll be taking this class for today, as you’re about to begin a very special unit,” she said. “We’ll start with a question. Which magical person, in all of history, has the highest body count?”

Harry waited, and Hermione’s hand shot up. Professor Storm glanced at her, and nodded, and said, “Let’s give someone else a shot first, shall we? Mr. Weasley, you look like you’ve a thought.”

Ron hesitated, looking at Hermione with his own shade of worry, and said, “Well… well, it's probably Grindelwald, innit? He was over on the continent and helping out with the big muggle war.”

Professor Storm shook her head. “An acceptable guess, but incorrect. Anyone else? No? Alright then, Miss Granger?”

“It's…” Hermione said, and then swallowed drily in a way that hurt to look at. “It's the Other, isn't it? I heard they're still trying to tally the deaths because so many of them are unclear over… over whether they were caused by the Other, or something else, or if the Other was more than one person, or if they were even magical, or—”

“Correct,” Professor Storm said, interrupting Hermione. “Three points. However, the nature of the Other is… well, I've had some unfortunate firsthand experience, most of which I'm still not allowed to talk about. Suffice to say, yes, the Other has the highest body count in magical history for a variety of reasons. Can anyone tell me _why_ so many members of wizarding society, particularly purebloods, don't want to acknowledge this fact in favor of someone like Grindelwald? Mister Malfoy, can you tell me why?”

Malfoy looked like he’d swallowed something particularly foul. “…he didn't use magic, mostly. Nobody's even sure he was a wizard. Could have been a bloody _muggle _dropping rocks on everything.”

Professor Storm smiled in the way that Harry kind of hated. “Ah, I see news hasn't spread this far north in the past few years. The Other's identity is now common knowledge in most of the continent: Lucrezia Mongfish, late wife of Bill Heterodyne, and mother of the current Lady Heterodyne. She was a witch, but, more importantly, she was a Spark, and while her magic _helped_ her, her Spark is what allowed her to reach the heights of power she achieved. Purebloods don't like to acknowledge that the vast majority of what she achieved had magic only as an aid, not as the primary source of power. Can anyone guess what we'll be talking about today? Ms. Greengrass.”

Daphne startled in her chair, like a string from the top of her head had been pulled taut to puppet her. “The Other War?”

“Exactly. Get your pens ready. I am, unfortunately for all of you, _very_ qualified to teach this.”

\--

Returning to class in the DADA room was ultimately just like Harry expected.

The board stated:

**Necromancy vs. Revivification vs. Inferius vs. Sparkwork Zombies vs. Revenants vs. Stealth Revenants vs. Imperius vs. Mind Overlays vs. Mind Transfers**

So, weird and uncomfortable and a little too likely to cause apprehension.

“Professor Storm?” Hannah asked. “Why do we have to learn this?”

“In case you encounter it,” Professor Storms aid, entirely straight-faced.

“But… but I thought revenants weren’t a problem anymore,” Hannah said, “And… and most people would never encounter most of those? Wouldn’t they be more suited to NEWT studies?”

“Mm,” Professor Storm said, almost thoughtful. “Well, I've had an up-close and personal encounter with each and every one of these in some fashion.”

Dean piped up. “…really?”

Professor Storm laughed lightly. “Of course! I've aided in revivifications, observed some necromancy that was _very_ quickly shut down by the authorities, dissected an inferius, chatted with a zombie, killed revenants, lived among stealth revenants, practiced the imperius (and yes, for those wondering, it was under controlled conditions much like yours from your last year), been victim to an attempted mind transfer, and the overlay is... well, that one's too classified to reference even in the vaguest terms. But yes. I have. All of them.”

Silence reigned.

“Well, go ahead. Let it all out.”

Seamus was the first to speak. “Bloody hell, _how?”_

“Oh, it's quite simple,” Professor Storm said. “I'm from Sturmhalten.”

\--

She brought back the Yule Ball.

When asked, she simply said that the children should have a chance to be able to dress up and go to a party, and muggles had school dances, so why couldn’t wizards?

“So she _is_ evil,” Ron said.

“Oh, stop it,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll go with you this time if you stop complaining about her.”

“Wait, really?”

\--

Harry was under the cloak again, sneaking about as he was wont to do at night. It wasn’t night, for the record, but early afternoon on a Saturday. That said, Lucius Malfoy was here, so Harry felt like he had a right to know what was going on with the man he was pretty sure would kill him without a second thought, had the whim struck him and the law not struck him down.

"Miss Storm, you are a Pureblood, correct?” Malfoy the elder asked. “So—"

"Oh, blue fire, no,” Professor Storm laughed. “My mother's side goes back, oh, two hundred years or so, but my father was a muggle. Powerful spark, certainly, but I am, by all standards, a half-blood."

Lucius Malfoy spluttered.

“Also, I’m a Professor, not a Miss,” she said, with a smile as sweet as poison. “Agent, perhaps. Madame, I’ll accept. Not Miss, not Ms., and certainly not Mrs.”

Lucius Malfoy’s upper lip twitched like he’d smelled something utterly rotten.

“But no, my father was a very powerful muggle Spark,” Professor Storm reiterated. Under her breath, she added so low that Harry could barely hear her no matter how hard he strained to, “And he still could have wiped the entire population of this castle out in a single afternoon if he'd felt so inclined.”

Dumbledore hummed genially. “What was that?”

Professor Storm smiled brightly. “I hate my father and I'm glad he's dead. He's the worst example of a spark.”

Lucius Malfoy snorted in a way that had Harry wanting to ask if he’d breathed something down the wrong pipe. “Seems to me the worst example of a mug—”

“No, the worst example of a spark,” Professor Storm snapped. “And a man. Honestly, the majority of his problems came from an absurd superiority complex born of his gender, political and economic status, and ability to warp reality to his whims.”

She gave the Lord a pointed look, and Harry stuffed his fist into his mouth and tried very hard not to laugh. He mostly succeeded.

Snape coughed, almost polite in a way meant Harry kind of wanted to yell at him. “Would most of that not apply to yourself?”

“Yes, well.” Professor Storm shrugged, unbothered in the slightest. “I am also a terrible person, and am technically here on parole.”

Lucius Malfoy spluttered. “Technically? What—what did you _do?”_

"That's classified,” she said.

"Why?”

She smiled at him. She took a step closer. She blinked.

“Seven months, Lucius.”

The man went pale and backed away from her. “No.”

“Oh, _yes.”_

Lucius Malfoy stormed off, and it would be quite some time before Harry found out just what happened to make him do so.

\--

The Yule Ball was… not very interesting, honestly. Compared to the year before, it was downright tame, but enjoyable. Music, food, and dancing made for a decent night out, and Harry was pretty grateful that Katie Bell decided to ask him to go with her, if only as friends, before he panicked again. Cho looked despondent for the weeks leading up to the ball, and Harry very much did not want to get involved with that. He still liked her, and a _lot,_ but as Katie pointed out, “She’s not in a great place to be starting a relationship right now. Give it some more time. She’s still grieving, you know?”

Which, well, yeah. Harry could understand that.

Professor Storm, true to form, had shown up in a dress that was covered in clockwork and lace and looked like it belonged on a runway more than in the Great Hall. Harry kind of wondered how she managed to walk around without tripping on it, but the large, familiar platinum blond at her side might have had something to do with it.

“I still can’t believe she’s married, mate,” Ron said, sipping some butterbeer and watching as Professor Storm and her husband spun around a near-empty dance floor in a way that kept the attention of most of the hall. “Think she has any kids?”

“No,” Hermione said. “But she mentioned a brother, once.”

“How is she so _pretty?” _Lavender whined. She and Parvati had come together, neither having been able to find a date in time, and Lavender was very clearly pouting as she watched the couple spinning on the dance floor.

“Don’t worry, Lavender, you’re pretty too,” Ron assured her, with the absentminded voice of a man who was much more concerned with the way his date was trying to seal up the fraying edges of the sleeves of his dress robes.

Lavender shot him a look of annoyance, and Parvati rolled her eyes.

“Oh,” Katie said, looking them over. “Ooooh, you too?”

Lavender pouted harder. “I don’t know. _Maybe._ I was talking about it with Daphne Greengrass…”

Katie winced and patted her on the shoulder. “I think you should ask Professor Storm—”

“What?!”

“—for _advice,”_ Katie finished. “Alicia did. Says it worked out pretty well.”

Lavender pouted harder. “Maybe.”

Harry leaned over to Ron. “What are they talking about?”

“No idea, mate.”

“Honestly, you _boys…”_ Hermione huffed.

Lavender whined, low and plaintive. “Why is she so _pretty?”_

“That’s got to be half the student body, at this rate,” Katie commented.

“I can’t say you’re wrong,” Parvati said. “Padma’s been mentioning something along those lines too.”

“Mentioning _what?”_ Harry asked.

The girls looked at each other, and then back at him and Ron. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a girl thing.”

Sure.

Whatever.


	2. Princess Sturmvoraus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two of two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took... so much longer than it should have.  
Also hi it's 2AM and I was wondering if I should go back and add ANOTHER scene earlier in the fic and. No. Nope. Nada.

When Harry got called up to Dumbledore’s office, he had plenty of wild ideas about why. Tea was not among them, but he couldn’t quite mind.

“You see, Harry, I am quite the accomplished wizard, and many would say that makes me the most dangerous in the castle.” Dumbledore stirred some sugar into his tea. “But I quite disagree. What would you say makes someone dangerous?”

Harry's mind whirled. "I suppose it's probably how much they can hurt people? How much they _want _to hurt people, too."

“A mixture of intent and capability?” Dumbledore smiled, but the twinkle in his eye wasn't there. “An apt answer, and a common one. By that standard, who is the most dangerous?”

“Snape,” Harry answered promptly. “Or Umbridge.”

“Ah,” Dumbledore said. “I'm afraid that neither of those answers is correct.”

“...you, sir?”

Dumbledore shook his head, smiling sadly. “No, I'm afraid that if you were to look for the most dangerous person in the castle by those standards, I would come close, as would Severus. I have no doubt that Dolores has quite a capacity for maliciousness in her, but I'm afraid that the proper answer is Professor Storm.”

Harry blinked and leaned back in his chair. “What?”

“You've overlooked her,” Dumbledore said. “Many do. She is capable, willing, and has plenty of political and economic power in reach.”

“Well, I mean—yeah, she's intimidating, but she's way nicer than Snape or Umbridge,” Harry said. “And I can't imagine that she's as capable as you are, Professor.”

“Professor Storm will be hosting a session of the dueling club next week,” Dumbledore said. “I'm afraid she's already promised to share a few stories. I can't imagine she'd like it if I spoiled them for you.”

Harry wasn't sure if he was looking forward to that or not.

\--

Dueling club was… interesting.

“Who here has heard of Smoke Knights?” Professor Storm asked. About half the hands in the dueling hall went up. “Great! This is my cousin Violetta. She's a Smoke Knight.”

The short, grumpy-looking woman with choppy red hair waved at the gathered students. Professor Storm continued along with the same casual, smug cheer as always. “We're going to have a short spar to demonstrate why you're all going to get yourselves killed in a fight with any serious opponent unless you get in shape. Ready? Set? Match!”

The movement that exploded across the stage was somehow _worse_ than when the web dame had attacked earlier in the year. They were faster than the eye could track, and Harry wasn’t even sure if they were using any magic. There were a handful of knives that clattered heavily against the shield spell that McGonagall and Snape and Flitwick were all holding steady in the air, and Harry wondered when they’d even had time to throw them.

The two cousins came to a stop as quickly as they’d started, and Harry gaped at the myriad of little cuts in cloth that revealed themselves. It seemed that neither had broken the skin, but they’d certainly done plenty of damage that came close.

“Who thinks their magic is fast enough to protect them from a bored Smoke Knight?” Professor Storm asked. “Remember, Violetta’s trained in this. She’s gotten—how many?”

“I’ve killed at least eighteen dark wizards in targeted raids, mostly during active battles or necromantic rituals,” Violetta said.

“And guess what?” Professor Storm said.

They all waited, until Ginny, front and center, sighed dramatically and asked, “What?”

“I’m a squib,” Violetta said. The whispers broke out heavily. “No spark. No magic. No guns. I am fast, I am thorough, and I am dedicated. I am still among the _worst_ of the Smoke Knights.”

“So, all that to say, you’re all fucked,” Professor Storm said, and Harry choked a little. Professor Storm was _way_ too—too controlled and refined to swear. She acted like some Victorian-era lady, not a sailor or a biker or whatever!

“Unless,” she continued, “You train your bodies as well as your minds. Everyone outside. Let’s go.”

Harry was never as glad for Quidditch practice as he was right then.

\--

_Hermione marched into Professor Storm’s office like she was going to war. She had theories and she was going to figure out the truth, even if it meant digging in the subtlest ways she could. She sat down, waited, and when the Professor gestured for her to speak, she did._

_“I want to know more about the Other war,” she said. “And about wizarding society in your area.”_

_Professor Storm nodded indulgently, pulled out a piece of paper, and started writing. “I'm glad you're so eager to learn! Here's five book titles to go look up so you have the right background information to ask questions that have a firmer foundation in the base facts.”_

_Hermione gnashed her teeth. Normally, she’d have been ecstatic with such recommendations, but they weren’t going to help as much as actual information would._

_So she left, and got the books, and read them, and came back._

_She got more book recommendations._

_She left. She got the books. She read them. She came back._

_“There’s a book I’d like to read,” she said. “Could you sign this pass for the Restricted section?”_

_Professor Storm tilted her head and nodded. “Explain why you want it first.”_

_Hermione drew herself up and took a deep breath. “You mentioned this spell in class and said you'd seen it used to disembowel someone in a battle, but that it had medical purposes. You said it was often used in a more careful matter to hang the intestines during surgeries on internal cavities. I wanted to look into the kinds of spells that have dual purposes like that depending on usage.”_

_Professor Storm quirked an eyebrow. “That's most spells.”_

_Hermione stared her down. “Yes, but you've mentioned spells that can double as either medical or torture so many times that I really, really want to know, now.”_

_The Professor laughed, loud and unashamed, and wrote the pass. “Clever girl. Go on, get. You can try to keep digging for information from me later.”_

_Hermione took the paper and left, and tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed the soaked-through man with hair the color of the Professor’s coming in._

_The brother, then? Maybe. She’d have to find out more…_

\--

Harry wasn’t surprised when Hermione came rushing back from her most recent visit to Professor Storm and demanded he get out the Cloak.

Or, well, he was surprised in that he hadn’t had a warning that she’d be doing this today, and it interrupted something he was already in the middle of, but he _wasn’t_ surprised in the sense that, ultimately, he’d kind of expected it to happen eventually.

They grabbed Ron and headed for the office in question.

(It wasn’t even after curfew. That was almost funny.)

The door wasn’t open, but Hermione hissed a spell and then another, and it swung open without a single creak.

There was no one in the room beyond, but the light shined from the room at the top of the stairs that Hermione assured them was Professor Storm’s private office. They crept up as a group and Harry held his breath as they entered the doorway.

Professor Storm was slouched forward on the desk with her arm held out in front of her. A man was bent down, with a large _thing_ in his eye that Harry was pretty sure was normally used for… inspecting gems or building watches or something. Finicky things like that.

When they edged further around the machines that crowded Professor Storm’s office, Harry understood why.

Professor Storm didn’t have an arm.

She had a—a fake. A metal arm, full of gears and wires and a faint blue glow. A—muggles called it a prosthetic or something? And Harry’s own glasses weren’t anywhere near strong enough to make out the myriads of small connections and twisting pieces. He _could_ see the fleshy glove that lay on the table beside them, and his stomach turned at how much it looked like a hand had just been skinned or melted or _oh okay it looked like his hand that time his bones had been magicked away, no wonder he was freaked out, **moving on.**_

The man said something in a language Harry didn’t understand, the same one Professor Storm spoke with her husband, and the Professor curled her metal fingers inward. A connection whirred loudly and groaned in a tinny, high-pitched whine, and Harry swore he saw a spark of clashing metal or shorted circuits with the noise.

Her fingers relaxed, and the man went in with the smallest set of tweezers Harry had ever seen.

The two kept up a quiet conversation as they worked, never in English, and Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of the tableau. The arm was fascinatingly complex, far more so than Moody’s wooden leg, and Harry wondered a little why magic couldn’t do something so lifelike when muggle technology apparently could.

Sparkwork, he remembered. Sparkwork application of what _looked_ like muggle technology. Outdated technology, too.

Still.

The man suddenly snapped, a shock after the quiet conversation thus far. “Anevka!”

Professor Storm responded, tone clearly mocking. “Tarvek!”

The man stepped back and crossed his arms, saying something that sounded rather unhappy and unpleasant.

Professor Storm rolled her eyes and wriggled the fingers of the arm on the desk. The man sprang forward, shouting, to immobilize the fingers with the tangible air of someone who was very upset that their hard work was being messed about with.

“Could you at _least_ wait to do that until your students stop spying?” The man asked, finally speaking English and driving a pang of fear into Harry’s heart. How?

Professor Storm sighed dramatically, pouting. “You’ve always had to ruin the fun.”

“Oh no, I had to convince you to stop causing trouble for people,” the man snapped. “How will I ever recover?”

“Well, it’s certainly not like I’m allowed to do the things I used to,” she said. Her eyes landed right where Harry and Ron and Hermione were. “Certainly not to students. I’m on _parole,_ little brother.”

“I know,” the man said. “I’m the one who _put you there.”_

Professor Storm cackled, head thrown back and jostling the arm again. She grinned like a madwoman, eyes still fixed on the trio at the door. “Run along children, or I’ll have to start dispensing detentions.”

They ran.

\--

It started like this:

Klaus Wulfenbach returned from his exile, son in tow, and saw a continent in ruins. National governments struggled to hold their countries together, martialing defenses and trying to eke out what they could, hindered by their own greed and corruption even as they stared an apocalypse in the face. Magical communities barred their doors and boarded their windows, wands clutched tight and suspicion on every newcomer. Tensions rose and hate rose with it, and through it all, the Other rampaged.

Klaus rolled up his sleeves. He got to work.

He pulled a continent together.

If the International Confederation of Wizards was the magical UN, then the Shining Coalition was the magical EU.

If the EU existed, and broke at the relentless hammer of Lucrezia Mongfish’s ridiculous barrage of boulders from orbit, then Klaus was the one who pulled it together and refused to let it falter again. Sparks had taken the chance to rampage on their own. Trafficking rings had thrived. Crime of all kinds had flourished. The EU couldn’t fix it.

So Klaus did it for them, and told himself he’d step down and let the world continue in democracy and voted representation as soon as it was safe. Until then, he did not bow his head and pretend to be something he wasn’t.

He was a tyrant. He was _the_ tyrant. He kept the peace, by holding the cuffs that would land on any wrists that dared try to break it.

The Romans had kept the peace with blood and power, and had called themselves the Pax Romana.

Klaus was kinder, ultimately. Gentler. He allowed the places he snapped up to rule themselves so long as they agreed to hold to his rules as well. Broad rules. Solid rules. Anti-discrimination policies and transparency in tax distribution. Mandatory audits. That kind of thing.

But he was still a tyrant of a kind, and he did not lie to himself, and so he did not say this was the European Union reborn.

It was the Pax Wulfenbachia, and it would remain until Europa no longer needed it.

Unfortunately for Klaus, Europa never seemed to _stop_ needing it.

Dammit, Lucrezia.

\--

Professor Storm never, ever ate. Hermione had long since stopped pointing it out, but Harry wasn’t able to stop noticing it, now. When he asked Hermione if she’d figured out what was going on there, she’d made a face.

“Remember how I figured out Professor Lupin was a werewolf, and never told anyone because of how sensitive the information was, and how Snape releasing the information ruined Professor Lupin’s life?”

“…yes?”

“Okay,” Hermione said. “I’m not entirely sure I’m right about Professor Storm, but if I _am_ right, and I tell you, and you get kidnapped by the Shining Coalition for interrogation in the middle of the night because you know now, it would be my fault.”

Harry stared at her.

So did Ron.

“It’s _strange,”_ Hermione said, hunkering down. “And I really, really don’t know what the consequences would be, and I worry. Can you just trust me?”

A part of Harry was very curious about Professor Storm’s nature, and wanted to ask Hermione to tell him anyway. This was an admittedly very large part.

Another part of him, smaller but much more sensible, reminded him that Dumbledore had declared the woman incredibly dangerous, and that the visiting cousin had been a squib with the demonstrable ability to _murder them all in a minute without effort,_ and the entire fight with the web dame, and the fact that Professor Storm and her brother had apparently been able to notice them despite the Invisibility Cloak and several sneaky charms, and Harry decided that maybe Hermione was right, and he really was better off not knowing.

\--

Hogwarts being what it was, there were always confusing, mildly terrifying incidents going on.

Harry didn’t know how to even start explaining it, mostly because he didn’t actually understand it that well in the first place.

It started with a crash during breakfast, loud and clattering and full of the crackle of sharp metal on ancient stone. Harry looked up just in time to see a—well, it _looked_ like a giant, angular, streamlined spider made of brass and steel, but Hermione hissed something about a clank, so Harry figured she probably had a better idea of what it was. Whatever it was, it had appeared on top of the Slytherin table as if it had grown in the half-second before the screaming started.

The clank started hissing, releasing a gas that was just barely visible at the spouts. The screaming got louder, and then started going very, very silent.

Hermione whipped her wand out and hit herself with a bubblehead charm, then Harry and Ron, and then whoever she saw nearby that hadn’t put it on yet themselves.

There was still screaming, but there were also quite a few bodies strewn about. The clank lifted the body of Blaise Zabini, struggling against the brass claw with the telltale sheen of a bubble charm over his face. The professors threw spell after spell at it, but nothing quite managed to hit.

A red-black blur slammed through the entrance doors and into the clank. It toppled, and a charm by Professor Dumbledore managed to catch Zabini as he fell towards the ground. Harry felt his heart drop with the Slytherin, because as much as he disliked them all, he didn’t really want anyone _dead,_ even a total prat like Zabini.

There was a series of loud screeching noises, metal rending metal, and the Professor Storm shouted something. A flash of light blinded Harry and, going by the noises, everyone around him, and the clank… toppled.

The room rang with silence as everyone waited, bated breath and all, for it to move again.

Professor Storm lowered her arm, her frown pronounced and boding ill for whoever had managed to set her off.

“What in _Merlin’s name_ was that?” Umbridge shrieked, breaking the silence.

“A clank that was here to kill a student,” Professor Storm said flatly. “Which is concerning. Zabini, anything broken?”

Zabini appeared to be hyperventilating.

Harry almost felt sorry for him, but while he didn’t want the boy _dead,_ a prat was a prat, and Zabini hadn’t really held back from making fun of _Harry_ for reacting poorly to scares like Dementors, even if he hadn’t been as blatant as Malfoy, so… ultimately… Harry couldn’t _quite_ bite back the little vindictive glee that squirmed in his chest at seeing the guy so off-kilter.

There was probably something wrong with that, he thought, and the vindictive glee made room for guilt.

“Give me your arm,” Professor Storm said, and when Zabini didn’t do that, she sighed and took it herself.

The rest of the professors had made their way down by that point, and between Umbridge’s loud exclamations regarding who would _dare_ try to harm a student of Zabini’s background, the Heads of House’s inspections of the students who were thankfully only unconscious, and Zabini’s move from hyperventilation to his own pitchy questions, there was a lot going on and no easy way to follow the commotion.

Dumbledore appeared to be methodically disassembling the clank. That was good.

“Professor, what did they—” Hermione started, and Professor McGonagall cut her off.

“C-Gas. It’s a muggle sparkwork invention. A bubblehead charm takes care of it easily enough, but only if you get it on in time.” McGonagall cast a careful spell over Seamus’s face, and something that looked rather a lot like a bubblehead charm, but filled with swirling purple glitter, covered his nose and mouth. “This won’t speed up recovery, but it will ensure that there are fewer harmful side effects.”

Harry ignored the conversation, mostly because the clank had started to shudder, prompting Professor Storm to turn away from the apparent blood test she was performing on Zabini to blast it with the ridiculous light again.

It stopped moving.

“What _was_ that?” Umbridge demanded. “Why has no one called the aurors?”

“EMP, it’ll keep it down for… less time than I’d hoped, but at least nobody else will be affected,” Professor Storm said. “And nobody’s called the aurors because, quite frankly, they’ll be useless here.”

“Explain,” Snape said, before Umbridge could get a word out.

“The only magic here was what kept it from being taken down by spellwork,” Professor Storm said. “The rest? It’s all sparkwork. The mechanism for the movement, the fabrication, the way it was folded in on itself, the gas, even the poison, it’s all… sparkwork.”

“They _poisoned_ me?” Zabini demanded.

Oh look.

The hyperventilation was back.

“Yes, looks like,” Professor Storm said. “Auntie Mehitabel’s, even, which—well, you’re lucky I’m here. Very hard to detect, that one. Slow, and subtle enough that it’s very easy to miss until it’s far too late.”

“And you’re sure—” Umbridge began to say, voice pitchy and haughty and so many things Harry hated.

“Yes, I am,” Professor Storm snapped. “It’s a Smoke Knight specialty. You _cannot_ detect it unless you are either a Smoke Knight or a poisons specialist, or otherwise very, _very_ good at something related to these. Severus and Albus and Poppy are all very good and, yes, _might_ have been able to detect it _if_ they knew that it was something to be wary of, but I am the only person in this room that is a _sure bet.”_

The two women glared at each other.

“Care to clarify why the aurors would be unable to help, beyond that?” Snape prompted, pulling them out of the staredown.

Professor Storm rolled her eyes even as she pulled an odd case from her coat and removed what looked very much like a syringe. “Please, you don't need Aurors for this. This isn't about magic. What you need is spies, sparks, and smoke knights.”

“Lucky for us,” she continued, slipping the tip of the needle under the skin of Zabini’s trembling arm. “I have all three on speed dial."

“You don’t need—”

“We _do,” _Professor Storm snapped. “Woman, just listen to yourself! I can get a sorcerer on the team if you really need one, but just admit that you don’t know what you’re dealing with here! Someone had the resources and power and time and _motive_ to want to kill a student, and you are letting your pride get in the way of finding out _who_ and _stopping it from happening again!”_

Professor Storm’s voice shook at the end, not with the emotion of a woman on the verge of tears, but with the two-toned tremor of a spark in fugue that Harry had only heard on television shows and, on one single occasion, when Luna had slipped up.

“I am calling Trelawney Thorpe. I am calling Ardsley Wooster. I am calling Violetta Mondarev. You are _not_ going to put your pride above a student’s safety, but you know what? I’ll bend. You can add an Auror to the team, _if_ you let the Headmaster pick which one.”

Professor Storm crossed her arms and glared.

Umbridge gnashed her teeth and glared back. “Why would you want to have the Headmaster pick? I’d know the ministry’s employees much better!”

“Have you taught every single English witch and wizard to come through this school for the past fifty or sixty years? No, no you have not. I trust his judgement. I don’t know you from Adam.”

Harry snorted as Umbridge’s face did a few fun contortions at the unfamiliar muggle phrase.

“Dolores,” Dumbledore said, before anyone drew a wand and tried to start a duel, introducing_ another_ violent altercation to breakfast before they’d even managed to solve the _first._ “Perhaps an auror that the ministry considers well-tested and recommended. I know you favor Dawlish.”

Wait, what? Why not an auror from the Order? Like—okay, maybe not Tonks, but—

Hermione elbowed Harry in the ribs and hissed, “Calm down.”

Umbridge eyed Dumbledore for a long moment. “No.”

“No to Dawlish, or no to—”

“Not Dawlish,” Umbridge said.

“Perhaps… Kingsley Shacklebolt?” Dumbledore prompted.

Umbridge weighed the options for a moment, and then nodded sharply. “I’ll send an owl.”

“There are faster ways,” Professor Storm sing-songed.

Umbridge didn’t even deign to look at her as she swept out of the room.

“Why did Dumbledore suggest Dawlish?” Ron asked quietly.

“Because she was going to reject the first option no matter who it was, just because it was Dumbledore suggesting it,” Hermione said. “She’s going to suspect Dawlish of being a plant now.”

“But not Kingsley?”

Hermione shrugged. “Depends on how clever she is, I guess.”

So… penny in the air.

Harry wondered when it would drop.

\--

“My father will hear about this!”

Professor Storm stared at the student, one eyebrow creeping slowly higher. “I should certainly think so. Parents usually _are_ informed of detentions.”

A splotchy pinkness covered Malfoy’s cheeks, and Harry put a hand up to cover his mouth, because he wasn’t sure if he was about to start laughing or say something that would almost make Hermione want to hit him with a rolled-up parchment again.

“I’ll get you removed from the school, I will!” Malfoy continued. “My father is _very _influential at the Ministry, and—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Professor Storm said, raising a hand. “Professor Umbridge is also very influential, and she also dislikes me, and has failed to remove me from the school. It’s almost adorable how you think that this is going to intimidate me, but if I might remind you, I am over twice your age, and your teacher, so threats are really only going to get you more detention.”

“My father—”

“Mr. Malfoy, your father has met me, if only twice, and quite frankly I scare him,” Professor Storm said, voice dry and wry and probably other words that ended with that sound. “I’ve been told I can be terrifying, when I want to be.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” Hermione said, just under her breath and barely audible for Harry and Ron, and probably completely lost in the noise for everyone else.

“Hey,” Neville said, and Harry _didn’t_ jump in place in shock. He definitely didn’t do that. “I just got here. What did he even do?”

“Insulted Hagrid where she could hear,” Hermione said. “She said it’s not acceptable to speak of anyone that way, especially a teacher, and to use slurs besides.”

“Oh,” Neville said. He craned his head in a near-futile attempt to see past Justin Finch-Fletchley. “That’s good, right?”

“Probably,” Hermione said.

“Of course it’s a good thing that she’s not a—” Ron started to snap, and then paused. Harry thought he was probably looking for a word to describe what the professor _wasn’t_ without using words that would most likely get _him_ a detention as well for vulgarity.

“Run along,” Professor Storm said. “You’ve got classes to get to, all of you. Get.”

They did so.

\--

Hidden passages were a great place to have secret conversations. Probably.

Hermione looked like she hadn’t been sleeping, frazzled and irritable. Harry was uncomfortably reminded of third year.

“So, what did you want to tell us?” Ron prompted, after a few seconds of Hermione digging through her bag.

“Professor Storm.”

They waited, but she didn’t continue.

“Yeah?” Harry tried to get her going. “I thought you said you didn’t want to share whatever you knew?”

“I don’t think she’s going to make any of _us_ suffer for knowing, now,” Hermione said. “Not given how she seemed more _amused_ than anything about her brother showing up. Ha!”

She pulled a folded-up set of papers from her bag.

Ron and Harry shared a look that, in Harry’s opinion, spoke volumes about how much they both thought Hermione needed A Goddamn Nap.

“She’s using a fake name,” Hermione started, flipping through what Harry now recognized as old newspapers. “It’s based on her real name, but—oh, it’s _ridiculous _that no one else has even _suggested _her actual identity. She’s not done much to _hide_ it.”

“Okay, and?” Ron asked.

“She’s so much more dangerous than she’s pretending,” Hermione said, voice firm.

“…seems pretty dangerous to me, mate,” Ron muttered to Harry, though not low enough for Hermione to miss it.

“Dumbledore told me she’s probably the most dangerous person in the school,” Harry offered. “Even more than him or Umbridge or Snape.”

“Harry, Ron, you…” Hermione trailed off, and then shook her head almost violently. “I’m glad to hear you’re taking Dumbledore’s words seriously, but Harry, she’s _the Muse of Storms.”_

Ron made a noise of realization.

Harry blinked.

Apparently, Hermione recognized the blank look of Zero Recognition. “She’s the _Storm King’s older sister,_ Harry. She’s not just one of the most dangerous people in the Castle, she’s one of the most dangerous women in all of Europe!”

Harry stared blankly at her.

“The what king?” he finally asked.

“The—the Storm King, Harry! He’s one of the highest authorities in Europe!” Ah yes, the irritation was here. “He’s one of the most influential people in magical politics _anywhere!_ I know you don’t pay much attention in History of Magic, but you _must_ recognize the… oh, he’s even famous in _muggle_ politics! The story _started_ with muggleborn royalty, so—”

“Mate, he's Baron Wulfenbach's husband,” Ron interrupted.

“Oh, him!” Harry said, suddenly understanding at least part of what was being talked about. “He’s mainland, right? He’s got a title but no actual country?”

Hermione seethed. Fumed. She did _something,_ alright, though Harry wasn’t sure what this exact shade of rage was.

He kept talking anyway. “I thought he was just some useless royal guy who did... like... I dunno, fashion? I think I saw Aunt Petunia talking about a wedding collection once?”

Hermione took a deep breath, and patiently tried to explain. “He's the Storm King, Harry. He's part of the political triumvirate that balances the continent. Storm King, Baron Wulfenbach, Lady Heterodyne.”

“So… he’s like Baron Wulfenbach, but for the magical world instead of muggle?” Harry asked.

“With a longer history,” Hermione allowed. “But yes.”

“So… his sister is dangerous. And she’s teaching here, because… Voldemort’s back?”

“That’s what I think,” Hermione said. She pulled out her wand and set the newspaper clippings to floating around. “This is the Storm King. Look familiar?”

“…that’s the bloke that was fixing Professor Storm’s arm,” Ron commented. “I thought he hadn’t found all the Muses? Bill was talking about how there are still three they haven’t found.”

“He didn’t,” Hermione said. “And you’re right, only six have been located and reunited with each other.”

“There’s seven in the picture,” Ron pointed out.

_“That’s_ not one of the original Muses,” Hermione said, with the tight patience of someone who was very close to losing her shit.

“…oh,” Ron said, eyes wide.

Harry, for the record, still had no idea what was going on.

“You said Muse of Storms,” Ron said carefully. “So… that’s the one they also call the Muse of Murder.”

Hermione grimaced. “Yes. She is.”

“And that’s Professor Storm?” Harry asked, just to make sure he was getting this right.

“Princess Anevka Sturmvoraus of Sturmhalten,” Hermione confirmed. “Professor Annie Storm. Her husband, for the record, is Othar Tryggvassen.”

“The guy running around calling himself Gentleman Adventurer?” Harry asked in surprise.

Hermione’s face twitched into something approaching rage.

“Yes,” she said. “That one.”

“So why are you telling us this?” Harry asked. “I mean, it’s interesting, but Dumbledore knew this when he hired her, right? And she said she’s on parole, and her brother knows.”

“Because you kept _asking me,” _Hermione hissed. “And because I’m worried about things that are happening, or going to happen, and…”

“And?” they both prompted.

“…and I think that the Storm King getting involved in Hogwarts is one step before they call in Albia,” Hermione admitted. “I overheard Miss Thorpe and Agent Wooster, you know. They mentioned Her Majesty, but the way they talked… and with everything the Lady Heterodyne did five years ago… I think they meant Albia.”

Well.

Shit.

\--

Harry, for the record, had no idea how the conversation had started, or what had led Umbridge to what _seemed_ like the brink of madness, or much of anything, really.

In his defense, Hermione seemed to be almost as bewildered as he was when Umbridge blasted open the doors of the Defense room with a crowd of Aurors at her heels and pointed at Professor Storm, screeching, “Annie Storm, you are u—”

“There is a _class,_ Dolores,” Professor Storm interrupted, arching one brow and not hiding the irritation in her voice. “Please refrain from interrupting the students’ education. We can speak later if you’d like.”

Umbridge faltered for a moment, and then regathered herself and whatever wits she had. “You're under arrest!”

“I object,” Professor Storm said immediately.

Ron choked on thin air, trying to hide what _might_ have been a cough. Maybe.

Oh hey, was that Kingsley? It was. Cool.

“You can't object yourself out of being arrested!” Umbridge snapped. “Dawlish, se—"

Professor Storm blinked. “Sure I can. You can't arrest me. Legally speaking, you can't arrest me, and if you do, there will be trouble. So I object.”

“This isn’t a court session, Professor,” Kingsley said. He did not meet the eyes of any students. Probably best for his cover.

Professor Storm shrugged, unconcerned. “It’s more fun this way.”

“Listen here, little girl,” Umbridge snarled directly at her. “You're foreign and the people of this school have already more than realized that you're not human, so whatever rights you may think you have are—”

“I have plenty of rights,” Professor Storm corrected. “I’m not legally human, no, but that’s only on _some_ of the paperwork. I have all the same rights as someone still fully human, and the law dictating such was passed centuries ago.”

“Whatever rights you may _think_ you have—” Umbridge tried again.

“And diplomatic immunity,” the Professor added, almost like an afterthought. “So if you arrest me, you'll have to deal with international attention on yourself. Also, the Ministry. Also, the school itself and, well, everything you've been doing.”

She smiled almost beatifically.

“I want some popcorn,” Dean whispered from the row behind. Harry agreed.

Umbridge paused, and then carefully began again. “…you have—”

“I have diplomatic immunity, yes.” Of course Storm didn’t wait for her to finish. Of course not.

A scoff from Umbridge. Ooh, that was quick compared to most of her reactions today. “The ministry would have been informed if—”

“It was!” Professor Storm insisted, utterly pleasant. Harry was abruptly reminded that Hermione’s pet theory right now included the fact that Storm was a Muse, which probably meant that she had a clank’s control over her expression and tone. No wonder she knew just how to seem calm when nobody else was. And right now, almost apologetic for how she was about to ruin someone’s day. “It's just that, well, you've got that twisted little head so far up your own rear that you don't really bother to pay attention to any information that makes its way through the non-magical government, do you?”

Ron was far from the only person choking on thin air now. Hermione made a noise that could be easily described as ‘horrified.’ Harry tried very hard to not laugh and give Umbridge a reason to laugh.

“Oh, a muggle diplomatic immunity,” Umbridge sneered. Huh. She’d gotten over that quick. “That's much easier to—”

“No, no, you've still got it wrong. I've got _all_ diplomatic immunity. I just registered through muggle customs instead of magical ones.”

“Why?” Dawlish asked, before Umbridge could get a word in.

“Because I felt like it,” Professor Storm said.

“I find that hard to believe,” Umbridge asserted. Back on an even keel, then? “You're clearly bluffing. Dawlish!”

The man in question grimaced. “Ma’am, please come along quietly.”

“Oh,” Professor Storm said. “Of course. I can’t wait! The trial is going to be _fun.”_

\--

So apparently Professor Storm’s lawyer was also a Muse. An openly clank-like one, even. Artimo, the articles said.

Sent by the Shining Coalition.

Because someone had _apparently_ forgotten that Professor Storm was here on _their_ behalf.

She got to come back to teach while the trial trundled along.

“It’ll be a few months before we see any real results,” she told them. “The bureaucracy is a nightmare, I tell you.”

They took her word for it.

\--

_“Almost there,” Martellus told her. “Two weeks of leeway, with the current lead time. We’re about three, maybe four weeks out now, at least according to the werewolves. Did you know he had a Smoke Knight faction?”_

_“Swayed or stolen?”_

_“Even mix, I think. Some are weak enough magically for the Imperius to work, and some just decided to join him for unknown reasons.”_

_“Hm. I thought as much, but it’s not exactly a good thing. Any idea if we can neutralize them?”_

_“Much as I hate to say it… I think the imperiused ones might be so easy to catch because they’re formerly wasped.”_

_“…oh my.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“So I’ll be switching out my voice box, then. Or we bring the Lady Heterodyne?”_

_“I’ll ask Seffie to reach out, they get along. What about…” he paused. “Your contact?”_

_“The couple I blackmailed? Oh, the Malfoys are such _dears,_ really. Information from the inner circle, which gives us a different angle than the weres in the underground. He’d _so_ intended to move slowly, you know, but with the right rumors…”_

_“You can’t call him out.”_

_“Of course not, but I’ve had Dumbledore helping, and if anyone can trigger a reaction from Voldemort, it’s the Headmaster. Did Othar’s message get through?”_

_“Yes. It might move the schedule up. I don’t know how much longer we have before things come to a head.”_

_“We’ll have warning.”_

_“Not much.”_

_“Well, that’s what the transporters are for. Really, cousin, you could at least _try_ to keep up.”_

_“Anevka.”_

_“Martellus.”_

_A disgruntled sigh that had her cradling the receiver closer with a smile just to revel in the irritation._

_“I have a class to teach soon, darling. _Do_ hurry up.”_

_“He’ll know it’s a trap.”_

_“He won’t know what kind. He knows that the mainland is interfering, but he doesn’t know how and… well, we have a secret weapon. Two of them, even.”_

_“So Thorpe got an approval?”_

_“Seems it.”_

_“And what if he doesn’t come himself? Goes underground and sends a double?”_

_“He won’t.”_

_“How do you know?”_

_“Because I have something he wants, and I’m going to make sure he knows it.”_

_The tiara in her lap pulsed._

_What an ugly soul in such a pretty little thing._

\--

Harry felt basically no remorse when he shook Ron awake. With a moment of hesitation, decided to take a page out of the Order’s book and send a Patronus to wake up Hermione instead of subjecting himself to the humiliation of trying to go up the stairs like Ron had the other day. It wouldn’t be just embarrassing, but wake up more than just Hermione. The other girls in their year were probably used enough to the adventures they had to ignore it if something showed up to ask Hermione to do something ridiculous and very against the rules.

She came down in her robes, hair pulled hastily away from her face. A couple curls escaped and hung in her face, which Harry thought looked like it would be irritating, but Hermione didn’t seem to notice, let alone mind, so he didn’t say anything.

“What?” she asked, brusque as was probably normal for—oh, hey. Well past midnight. Almost two in the morning, actually, _that_ wasn’t great.

Harry held up the Invisibility Cloak. “I’ll explain on the way?”

She rolled her eyes and the three snuck out.

The Marauder’s Map was… not the easiest thing to use, crouched as they were under a magical object meant to conceal one adult person, not three nearly-adults who were all trying to keep an eye on the same piece of paper without revealing their feet or tripping down some stairs.

“See?” Harry said, passing the paper to Ron, who held it for Hermione to see. “I saw Umbridge heading that way earlier, and now she’s been standing outside Professor Storm’s room for almost fifteen minutes.”

“Why are we investigating?” Hermione asked. She was either resigned or trying to test him, somehow, and he wasn’t sure which was worse.

“’Mione, she’s been trying to get Professor Storm arrested for ages,” Ron pointed out. “What if she tries to just get her sacked and it works? And then we get _Umbridge_ as the professor?”

“Thank you, Ron,” Harry said. “Nice to know you have my back.”

Harry couldn’t see Hermione rolling her eyes, but he could definitely feel it.

They heard the shouting before they turned the corner and saw what was going on.

Professor Storm, in a bathrobe, in the doorway to her personal rooms, arms crossed and leveling an unimpressed look at Umbridge.

Umbridge, also in a bathrobe, ranting about… something. It was kind of hard to tell when they’d come in the middle of it all.

“I’m sorry, was there a point to this?” Professor Storm asked.

“You—of course there was a point! You—you reprobate!”

“Okay,” the Professor said drily. “Sure. Did you need to ask me something, or did you just come down to yell at me about things that aren’t your business?”

“Your _husband_ has been banned from the grounds, and—”

“I’ll need to see paperwork to that effect.”

Hermione groaned, small and stifled. “Why does she enjoy poking Umbridge’s buttons so much?”

“He is an agent of a foreign government, and is no longer allowed on the premises!” Umbridge barked. “And you’ve got him hidden away in your rooms, which is _definitely_ grounds for an arrest!”

“…he’s my _husband,”_ Professor Storm said carefully. “He’s here on a Visa. That foreign government he represents is an international coalition that covers both magical and muggle spheres. Hogwarts is not a political entity. It’s a school. The teachers can have their loved ones visit, it’s in the contract. It’s _mandated by the Ministry, _even.”

“Do you think she’s going to sue Umbridge?” Ron whispered.

Harry shrugged. He wouldn’t be surprised at this point.

“Your _visits…”_ Umbridge spat. “Do _not_ sanction the presence of a spy from the _primarily muggle_ _international body.”_

“…you really think he’s spying,” Professor Storm said. “Despite the fact that I’m here, all year, and he’s about as subtle as a brick to the face?”

“You could be passing him the information you gather.”

“I’m not sure how to tell you this, but that is far from what we were doing,” Professor Storm told her. “There are easier ways to sneak information out, you know. Sparkier ones. Have you been reading the penny sparklies? I know they say—”

“A STUDENT COULD HAVE SEEN!” Umbridge roared. “The—the _indecency alone_ is enough to get you locked up for months!”

“Yes, Dolores. That’s why I _locked the door before you tried to make it explode,”_ Professor Storm said slowly, as though speaking to a child or, in more practicality, someone devoted to ignoring her logic. “Is this a matter of discrimination for my no longer being entirely human? I could make a case of that.”

“Your case means nothing,” Umbridge dismissed. How was Professor Storm so good at riling her up? “Especially since, in his position, he clearly had no control over the situation. You were forcing—”

“Okay, hold up,” Professor Storm said, lifting a hand clad in some black lace gloves with no fingers that Harry couldn’t understand the point of. “He is a consenting adult. I don’t see how this is any of your business, but he’s my husband and we planned this night out.”

Oh hey, Hermione was making strangled noises again.

“He was _tied up—”_

“Oh, for the love of—_Darling!”_ Professor Storm called over her shoulder. “Please prove to this woman that you are in no way trapped for real and could have broken out at any time?”

A pause.

A very loud ripping noise.

And suddenly, there he was.

Shirtless Othar Tryggvassen, standing behind Professor Storm, lifting up a blindfold and looking a little like an annoyed puppy.

Hermione had a death grip on both Harry and Ron’s wrists. It kind of hurt. Harry was pretty sure that if she let go, though, she would lose any remaining control and start quietly screaming in a way that made her sound like a frustrated teakettle.

“Are we done?” Professor Storm asked drily. “I’d like to get back to my one night this month where I get to actually spend time with the man I decided, against all sense, to marry.”

Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, did not seem offended by this comment. He actually stepped forward to wrap an arm around Professor Storm’s waist and pull her to his chest, glaring down at Umbridge.

“He could lift her with one arm, mate. He could probably fit her waist between his hands.” Ron whispered, a little off-kilter. “He’s _massive.”_

Harry considered this, looking at Tryggvassen’s admittedly huge hands, and figured that yeah, he could probably pick up Professor Storm without a problem.

“Even though she likely is made of metal and several hundreds of kilos heavier than you’d expect, I agree,” Hermione admitted. “Wait, Ron, are you—”

“Please don’t, ‘Mione. Not now.”

The stare-off between the adults only got more awkward.

“You can go back,” Professor Storm muttered, patting Tryggvassen’s hand. “So, anything else, Dolores? Or can I get back to what I was doing?”

“You cannot possibly defend your actions here,” Umbridge said stiffly. “To be doing such vile things in a _school_ with young, impressionable minds and—”

“The door was locked, Dolores,” Professor Storm repeated, stressing the name like maybe it would help. “I don’t know what else to tell you, other than that _my sex life_ isn’t any of your _goddamn business.”_

Harry choked on thin air, the conversation finally catching up with him.

Shit.

What was—wait—tied up? Why did sex involve tying someone up?

Hermione lightly thwapped him on the head and told him to get a hold of himself before Umbridge noticed them.

“Let’s go,” Ron finally said. “I don’t—I don’t think we need to be here. They have it handled.”

Yeah. They—yeah.

\--

“But why would she _tie him up?”_

“Harry, you’re my best mate, but please stop asking me about our professor’s… hobbies. She’s going to find out, and then she’s going to hunt us down and bake us into pies or something. She scares me like mad and you’re going to get her involved.”

“But—”

“Harry. Please. I want to think about her like this as much as I want to think about Snape. Do you want to think about Snape in that situation? Because I don’t.”

“That’s disgusting, Ron.”

_“Exactly.”_

\--

_It started like this:_

The Lady Heterodyne took her castle. The Storm King took his throne. The Baron Wulfenbach took his Empire.

They brought the rocking hell of a political landscape back on even keel, and they trusted each other implicitly. They were tyrants, perhaps, but kind ones, and introducing power to others where they saw fit.

_It started like this:_

The Wasp Queen was put abed for good, ripped from the times that weren’t. The God Queen awoke and bundled her rage tight as she gazed upon her empire. The Warrior Queen opened her borders to the world at large.

Holes opened to places unknown, and the world leaned forward to catch a glimpse.

_It started like this:_

A Muse was found, here and there and everywhere. A Muse was transformed, in the belly of a broken Castle, from metal to flesh to metal again. A Muse was created, in the heart and hands of a man who would be king.

Strong women. Clever women. Mostly good women.

The Muse created was a princess, an assassin, a spark. She was a villain and a hero, from one set of eyes to the next.

She was put on parole, and since that parole had her carrying out the dirty work of her precious little brother, she rather enjoyed it.

She even fell in love along the way, with a hero who was seen by some as a villain, bright and friendly and large, everything she was not. An odd couple. An unlikely match. A terrifying duo.

_It started like this:_

The best way to take down a would-be dictator is to bring in someone that’s already so much better at it.

\--

So Voldemort attacked the school.

Because _of course _he did.

He even attacked during a Quidditch game, so the teachers couldn’t even tell them to go back indoors and hide, because there he was. In the way. With an army.

The students, of course, ended up in a huddled group behind the teachers, a massive shield protecting them from the _horde of death eaters,_ and every time Harry tried to fight his way to the front to see better, a seventh year would shove him behind. Apparently, they thought things were less likely to blow up in their faces if Voldemort didn’t see him, and a good half of the sixth and seventh year students had decided it was _their_ job to protect everyone fifth year and under.

** _“Students and staff of Hogwarts, I believe one of you has come into possession of something that belongs to me.”_ **

What.

** _“Return it, and I may even let you all live. This time.”_ **

“Oh good, you came!” Professor Storm near-chirruped. “I was worried you hadn’t gotten the… invitation.”

Wait, _what._

She pulled something from her sleeve and waved it about in the air. It was hard to tell from this angle, but Harry was pretty sure it was some kind of crown thing.

“Looking for this?” She damn near _cooed._ “It’s really quite pretty, but I don’t think it’s your shade. Simply wouldn’t match the lack of nose, you know.”

Voldemort snarled, shot off a jet of green light with a shout of Harry’s _least favorite spell ever,_ and followed it up with a summoning charm.

Professor Storm did not fall.

“You ruined my jacket,” she accused. “It’s my favorite one! Do you know how hard it is to find this kind of brocade these days?”

What the _fuck what the fuck what the fuck._

Nobody… actually said anything. Harry was a little too far away to actually tell what Voldemort’s face was doing, but he was pretty sure it was _something._

“Oh, you’re surprised? Dear me, surely you knew you couldn’t kill something that was already dead.”

“Hmph. A vampire?”

“A—oh my.” Professor Storm sounded almost embarrassed. Not for herself, Harry was sure, but for Voldemort. “This is rather awkward, isn’t it? You mean you didn’t… know?”

“Enough stalling,” the man in question snapped. He raised his wand and—

“Ashes!” Professor Storm called over, almost cooing. “The diadem is so pretty, but I think it would look nicer if I burnt it to a crisp with something cursed, don’t you?”

And Voldemort _fucking paused._

“Annie,” McGonagall said. “Please tell me you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course I know!” She sounded so _cheerful._ “See, our dear _friend_ Tom over there decided to achieve immortality by splitting his soul, which only somewhat worked—certainly not as effective as the Mongfish Protocol, but he_ has_ managed to come back once, so I suppose it wasn’t entirely ineffective. In any case, this lovely little crown is currently playing host to one of those soul bits.”

“And you’re… holding it hostage,” McGonagall concluded, sounding very, very tired. “And you couldn’t have done this away from the students?”

“In my defense, I certainly didn’t expect him to do something so _blatant_ instead of sneaky,” Professor Storm sighed. She waved to Voldemort, and Harry imagined there was probably a smug grin gracing her not-entirely-real features. “Though the stolen Smoke Knights were a nice touch. Ultimately useless, of course, but a good effort.”

“Please stop antagonizing the incredibly dangerous Dark Lord,” Professor Sprout said, so low that Harry barely heard her.

“Oh, he’s not _that_ bad,” Professor Storm sniffed, and at least a few people gasped. “I mean, the malice and horrifying acts of violence and bigotry are certainly up there, but the actual power? Well, not much to write home about.”

“And yet you did it incessantly anyway,” Snape drawled.

“A job’s a job,” Storm agreed.

Harry missed the next few sentences, mostly because he was trying to fight off _whatever had picked him up and pulled him away and oh bloody hell this was—_

“Stop _thrashing,”_ a vaguely familiar voice hissed. “They’re going to notice before we can replace you all.”

“Harry, Harry, it’s alright,” Professor Lupin? “She’s with the Order. We’re just letting Storm stall until we can get all the students out of the way.”

Harry relaxed, just a little.

“And that Umbridge woman,” the person holding Harry finally let him go. He turned around, and found himself looking at Professor Storm’s cousin, the little woman with the dark red hair and the scary knives. “If for a very different reason.”

She jerked her head over her shoulder, and—yep, there was Umbridge. Tied up and screaming through a gag, but there she was.

“We didn’t want her trying to sabotage the Order,” Remus explained, rubbing the back of her neck. “The plan we’ve got in place wasn’t supposed to take place with you kids in the way, and it came about sooner than planned. We only got a few hours warning, and with the match going on, we didn’t have much time to plan interference without tipping our hand.”

“Only a handful left,” Mondarev said, peering through the odd barrier of hexagons between them and the teachers. She tapped it with her knuckles and nodded. “Illusion barrier should hold up if something goes wrong. Sparafucile’s almost done.”

“She is,” a woman with absurdly long, absurdly red hair said, coming over with an odd clipboard that looked more like a muggle computer screen than anything. “Anevka’s going to have to keep it up a little longer, though, Thorpe ran into resistance on the way in. We’ve only got SC and Wulfenbach forces right now.”

“That’s all we need for the neutralizing dome,” Mondarev pointed out. She held her wrist up to her face. “Hey, morons. Can we get moving before someone realizes what’s up? Dark Side’s looking antsy and I’d rather get them cut off before we risk it more. Dicey on the ground, how’s the air?”

“Is that really how you address your king?” A deep voice asked. “I’m almost offended on his behalf.”

“Tweedle? What are—you know what, I don’t care. Give me an ETA.”

“Three and a half minutes,” he said. “Our lovely secret weapon had already moved to her summer home, so we had to drag her out of the ocean instead of off the moon.”

Mondarev’s face did an odd twitching thing, and she hissed. “We don’t have _time_ for this. Get the dome down, _General.”_

“The Jägers and the Knights of the Hunt are in position,” the man known to Harry only as ‘Tweedle’ said. “DuPree called in a confirmation two minutes ago. SC in the air, Wulfenbach surrounding. Tryggvassen in position. Bears and Krosp, in position. Wooster’s on the line with Thorpe, they’re a minute out. Skifander couldn’t make it on short notice.”

“Get my idiot cousin on the line,” Mondarev hissed.

“Harry!”

Oh hey. Hermione was here. There was Ron. Cool, Harry had almost gotten way too invested in adults arguing about people he’d never met.

She grabbed his shoulder, spun him to face the barrier, and marched him over to keep watching whatever the hell was going on as Storm somehow _kept stalling_ Voldemort.

Holding his soul hostage probably helped a lot.

“Really, you're trying too hard, darling,” Storm cooed.

Voldemort was still too far away for Harry to do more than barely hear him. “You think you could do better?”

A laugh that was halfway between tinkling bells and knives on stone. “Dear, I'm _Valois_. I learned from the best, and nothing but the best. You're bad, and you're a villain, but you just haven't got the _class_ to make it to the level of... well, Lucrezia Mongfish. Zola Malfeazium. Petrus Teufel. Even Dimitri Vapnoople at least had a flair for the dramatic, _darling_. You’re a villain, but you’re not a _supervillain, _you know?”

A pause.

A long, uncomfortable, pregnant pause.

“Who _are_ you?” Voldemort demanded.

“NOW!” Mondarev shouted behind Harry, nearly making him miss the next bit.

“Me? Oh, I suppose it’s too late to keep pretending, isn’t it?” Storm asked. She sighed, far too dramatically, and bowed, just as dramatically. “Pleased to meet you. I am Princess Anevka Sturmvoraus of Sturmhalten, older sister of the Storm King, Red Hand of the House of Valois, Field Agent of the Shining Coalition, Muse of Murder and Lightning, daughter of a madman beyond your ken, wife of Othar Trygvassen, and currently Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. And yourself?”

Oh look. Silence again.

Professor Storm checked the watch on her wrist, which didn’t exist, because she didn’t wear a watch, and Harry wondered just how much of the current obnoxious attitude was her playing something up to stall for time.

“Clear,” the pale woman with the ludicrously long hair from before said.

A horrifying sound ripped through the air, and an enormous pillar of light erupted somewhere in the Forbidden Forest. Almost instantly, more erupted around the grounds, distant enough that Harry couldn’t tell what was causing them, but…

“Oh good,” Professor Storm said, cheery to the last. “The cavalry’s here.”

Voldemort apparently decided that sacrificing a piece of his soul was well worth guaranteeing his continued independence by getting the fuck out of dodge, so he turned on the spot and—

Nothing.

A field full of Death Eaters stumbling as they didn’t Apparate, and rather awkwardly spun and tripped on their hems.

Voldemort recovered quickly enough to slash his wand through the air and snarl out a handful of curses.

Nothing happened.

Again.

Someone whimpered in fear behind Harry.

Another person started crying.

“What the bloody hell…” Ron whispered.

“Thorpe’s squad still in transit. Bring in the Storm and company for act three,” the woman with the long hair spoke into—was that a radio?

“Affirmative,” the man Harry only knew as Tweedle responded.

The sky rippled, like a concealment charm dissolving, and… dirigibles?

Hermione asked a question behind him, turned away just enough to not be heard, and Mondarev answered. “Nah, planes are too finicky to mix with magic; harder to patch up in a mid-air emergency, too. If we don’t need the speed, we stick with the airships.”

“Have you ever watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I think you would find this familiar, if you had,” Professor Storm mused aloud.

A voice boomed out across the crowd, the same baritone that Harry had identified as Tweedle. **“Tom Marvolo Riddle and associates, this is General Von Blitzengaard of the Shining Coalition. Magic has been negated in the local radius and you’re all under arrest. Lay down your weapons.”**

Harry gaped. Had… had Dumbledore decided to sidestep the entire issue of the prophecy and just _called the cops?_

Or the army.

The scary, sparky, magical army.

A smaller airship detached itself from the behemoth above, which Harry belatedly realized was marked as property of the Pax Wulfenbachia, and slowly started making its way down. He quickly lost track of this, because _oh god there were Jägerkin and Geisterdamen coming out of the woods._

“We brought friends,” Professor Storm insisted.

Snape was immediately next to her, and looked a lot like he wanted to bury his face in his hands.

Ha.

A flash of movement from the Death Eaters, quick as lightning, and then some screaming.

Bellatrix Lestrange was on her knees, clutching at her chest and screaming.

(When had Voldemort even had the time to break her out of prison?)

Voldemort was flat on his back, yards away from where he’d been the last time Harry had looked.

A woman in a white coat and red sweater stood over Bellatrix, grinning so brightly that Harry could see it from here, and putting her weight on an arm resting on a stock-still Lucius Malfoy’s shoulder.

“Y’know, they told me this wouldn’t be fun, but I _already_ got to stab someone, so I’m calling this a win.”

Mr. Malfoy continued to Not Move.

“Hello, Queen DuPree!” Professor Storm called over. “Please don’t kill them, we need the information.”

“I gotcha!” DuPree called over, and then whirled around and stabbed another Death Eater. “You know what, not so fun. You guys can’t fight at _all_ once your wands are useless. Seriously, learn how put someone in a chokehold or somethin’! I can’t be doing all the work, yeah?”

She then put Mr. Malfoy into said chokehold and held a knife to his throat. “So, you nerds care enough about _this_ nerd to stop putting up a fight?”

**“I repeat, lay down your weapons. We won’t stop her, you know. We don’t need _all_ of you.”**

Oh, great, ‘Tweedle’ was having fun with this.

“Who _is_ that?” A horrified voice whispered behind Harry. He faintly identified it as Nott. A quick glance confirmed this, as well as giving Harry a nice look at Malfoy’s pinched, pale, terrified face.

“Pirate Queen Bangladesh DuPree, currently a major enforcer and wild card of the Pax Wulfenbachia,” Hermione rattled off. “Muggle father, by all accounts a rather normal man. Pureblood witch for a mother, the previous Pirate Queen, and the one that is, as far as anyone knows, responsible for the violent streak.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” Nott admitted.

“Well,” Hermione huffed. “Maybe you should pay attention to politics. She’s magical, but she doesn’t bother with magical methods, so none of you care.”

“And here she is, kicking everyone’s ass,” Mondarev finished for her. “Anyway, you kids are probably safe if you stick around now, but we’ve got a medical ship out here for the shock. ‘Nevka’s got a handle on DuPree and we’re about to take down your government, so—”

Umbridge started thrashing and screaming.

Mondarev kicked her.

“Aurors and British Minister of Magic are almost here,” the long-haired woman reported.

“Thanks, Seffie,” Mondarev said, still glaring through the barrier at the shape of whatever the _hell_ was going on out there. She looked over at the small airship that had finally landed. “Cameras active?”

“Way ahead of you,” Seffie muttered. “All running. Recording dingbots in place, non-sentients in place, humans in place. Information stream confirmed.”

She held her wrist up to her mouth and said, “Tarvek? We’re good on the ground. Levels holding stead, DuPree and Anevka have a handle on the situation outside. You ready?”

“Tryggvassen’s almost there,” another voice said. “We’re holding until their ship lands.”

“How far?”

“Forty-five seconds. Timing worked out.”

“Received,” Seffie said, putting her wrist down again and tapping at the rectangle in her hands. She turned, and Harry followed her gaze to a small dot in the distance.

It was a sign of _something_ that this was capable of drawing his attention from the standoff with the man who’d ruined his life.

One of the Death Eaters broke, stepping back away from the rest, slow and steady, and right into a Jäger. None of the others seemed to notice, given how intent Queen DuPree seemed on humiliating them to the last.

There wasn’t any yelling. It was very calm, even. Harry had no idea who the Death Eater in question was, but apparently some of them were sensible enough to come quietly.

“Landing,” Seffie muttered. “Tryggvassen _does_ know the plan, right?”

“If he messes this up, Anevka will murder him,” the other voice said drily. “And not in the way he actually enjoys.”

“Wh—”

“Don’t ask, Seffie. Just… don’t.”

_“You’re the one who brought it up.”_

The new airship opened up, and disgorged—

“DEAREST CITIZENS AND INNOCENTS, I HAVE ARRIVED TO AID IN THE APPREHENSION OF THESE DASTARDLY FELLOWS, FOR I AM **OTHAR TRYGGVASSEN**, _Gentleman Adventurer.”_

Harry twitched.

“Hello dear,” Professor Storm greeted him. “Do calm down. Did you bring the squishy important people?”

Tryggvassen moved aside and _oh shit that was the Minister._

Staring in horror at Voldemort and his army and, eventually, at Professor Storm.

Tryggvassen beamed.

“Tarvek?” Seffie asked into her apparently-wrist-based communicator.

“Doors opening in T-minus ten seconds,” came the response.

And so they did.

And out walked the most terrifying trio in Europe.

Red hair. Crown. A face Harry had only seen on fashion magazines and one or two muggle newspapers.

Blonde hair. Glasses very similar to his own. Muscles that betrayed just how well she could use the hammer at her waist if her wand failed her.

Brown hair. Built like a brick shithouse. The man Uncle Vernon raged about whenever the Pax Wulfenbachia interfered in Britain’s affairs again.

“Hello, little brother!” Professor Storm called.

The Storm King took a moment to nod at her, and then turned back to the assembled Brits.

“This country has devolved into a _mess,”_ he said, voice even. “Mr. Riddle, you and all your associates are under arrest. You will be provided with any necessary medical attention, especially that which resulted from Queen DuPree’s attentions. You will be blocked from your magic. If you resist, deadly force has been authorized.”

Harry had his hands over his mouth.

The grown-ups were handling it.

The grown-ups weren’t being useless.

They were actually _doing something._

“And right on cue…” Seffie trailed off just as the Minister rounded on the Storm King.

“Your Majesty, it’s an honor to have you here, but this is English business, you understand. This isn’t something you should be involving yourself in, and England _does_ have some very strict laws in place regarding how far you are able to extend your influence. We appreciate the help, but—”

“You’re digging yourself a hole,” the Lady Heterodyne told him. “You’re the reason it got this bad, and you are most likely going to be removed from office as a result of the mess.”

Fudge spluttered.

The radio at Seffie’s wrist crackled, and Tweedle was on the line once more. “Thorpe incoming. Clear on the ground?”

“Clear,” Seffie told him. “Did Anevka confirm?”

“She did,” Tweedle said. “Coming in hot.”

“We’re ready,” Seffie assured him.

Not an airship this time.

A regular ship, except it wasn’t. Twisting metal for walls and an ethereal glow, it was magical to the core and had no gas bag. It simply… floated down, and landed.

The first person off, Harry recognized. Trelawney Thorpe, from the incident with Zabini earlier in the year.

The second, he didn’t.

He didn’t need to, though. The rage that emanated from the glowing woman was enough to give him nightmares for years.

“May I introduce Her Majesty,” Thorpe said, gesturing to the woman, “Albia, Eternal Queen of England.”

Oh _fuck._

The woman turned to Fudge. “You, young man, are _fired.”_

Fudge quivered in his boots.

Albia turned, to Voldemort, and stepped forward. And again. And with every step, she grew, until she towered over the entire battlefield, taller than any giant, hair higher than even the Wulfenbach airship.

**_“And _you_ will be very lucky if I do not _set_ you on fire.”_**

\--

It started like this:

Albia knew a young goddess and her consorts, and asked them to save her country before said country did something incredibly stupid again.

It started like this:

A young king had a sister he didn’t know what to do with, so he put her on parole and sent her to be a teacher, and hoped for the best.

It started like this:

A woman twice dead and made of metal was too bored to say no to educating children, and went abroad for a spot of adventure.

It started like this:

Adults entered Harry Potter’s life and not only did they _want_ to save him, but they _knew how to do it._

It ended like this:

Professor Storm stuck around a few weeks and gave them their exams. She did not change how she behaved at all.

Voldemort and all the Death Eaters were arrested. Lucius Malfoy and his wife were given a plea bargain, as they had played the role of informants for Princess Anevka. Under duress, but they’d done it. Those who had come quietly and played along given lighter sentences. Those who tried to escape and kill and maim as soon as they left the barrier of magic-negation did not.

Albia ripped the Ministry of Magic up by its roots, rearranged everything and everyone and implemented all the laws she saw fit, and then did the same to the muggle Ministry. She then disappeared back to wherever she spent her years hiding, and everyone remembered why her throne was never taken.

Harry met Professor Storm’s brother, managed to stumble over his words and, between thanking the man for his help with the entire Voldemort situation, thanking the man _again_ for believing him, and trying to figure out the proper way to address him, he ended up complimenting the man’s most recent eveningwear collection. He’d then tried to explain that he’d only known about the fashion because of Aunt Petunia, and apologized for only knowing him as the fashion designer husband of the Baron Wulfenbach, and rambled about having tried to make sure that the Storm King and the designer Tarvek Sturmvoraus were the same person by looking at muggle magazines that Hermione’s parents sent her, bemused, via the owl post.

The Storm King watched him for a few seconds, and then turned to the aforementioned husband and said, “See? I _told_ you the eveningwear collection was good. You just don’t have any taste.”

So that went well.

And all was well that ended well, right?

Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, this ending was always the plan. "Tarvek and co. show up and arrest Voldemort, Harry has to do nothing." A Monty Python Ending.

**Author's Note:**

> This got... long.  
So I had to split it up.  
Anyway, rest'll hopefully be up tomorrow before I post my Oct. 9 fic.


End file.
